On demand picks

December 30, 2009

RACHEL GETTING MARRIED

(Starz on Comcast) This movie is multiracial, multiethnic, and polyphonic, like Cambridge letting Williamsburg and Brooklyn move into its house. The central drama concerns a junkie (Anne Hathaway, above) home from rehab in time for the wedding of her sister. Director Jonathan Demme strikes a balance between weepiness and eccentricity. (R; runs through Jan. 1)

WESLEY MORRIS

ABOUT A BOY

(Comcast Movies: All Movies) This adaptation of Nick Hornby’s novel is greatly aided by Hugh Grant’s sharp performance as a solitary, selfish lout who reluctantly learns a few life lessons from Nicholas Hoult’s sullen 12-year-old. Ultimately, the filmmakers are too timid to follow through on Hornby’s deeper explorations about alienation and the human need for connection. (PG-13; runs through Jan. 4)

BATMAN RETURNS

(Comcast Movies: All Movies) Better than the original because it’s more of a Tim Burton film - darker, weirder, more gnarled and more fun as it sends its isolated, conflicted characters through a heavy, oppressive retro Gotham City where the architecture is either fascist or decaying, or both. The sun never shines on Michael Keaton’s brooding Batman, who looks as if he’s been run through the Sharper Image catalog, or Danny DeVito’s embittered Penguin, who suggests an uprooted tree trunk in Dickensian costume. Michelle Pfeiffer, as whip-cracking Catwoman in a slinky, sexy black catsuit with Frankenstein stitching, steals the movie. She’s where Frederick’s of Hollywood meets Freud. (PG-13; runs through Jan. 4)